The human condition is one that gravitates towards ease. The technology industry has taken this fundamental human desire and made billions in feeding it. The TV, the cell phone, the car, the airplane, the computer, the search engine, and social media all provide a shortcut to an end.

The airplane, obviously, a shortcut to a destination, and social media, a shortcut to human interaction, an ability to portray whatever “you” that you’d like to portray without having to interact on a one-on-one basis. This desire for ease that’s constantly quenched by the latest innovation isn’t all positive. With everything at our fingertips, the things that once developed strong, manly characteristics and just values in our population have all but disappeared. When hardship inevitably enters our lives at the most inopportune time, those things that have brought us ease have also weakened our resolve. They’ve left us open to the disease that is self-entitlement and envy. They’ve opened us up to the infection that is laziness, an evil that not only makes our lives worthless, but negatively effects the rest of our society as well.

As ease becomes the way of life, hardship can no longer happen by chance, it must happen on purpose, and daily. We have to look for ways to make our lives tougher, not easier. It’s in this self-inflicted hardship that we become tougher, more resilient, and better equipped for the tribulation that will one day come anyway. This self-inflicted hardship builds the characteristics that were once commonplace in society, like honor and character, even confidence.

Success, in previous generations, was the result of the development of something called, character. It was a necessary ally on the road to becoming the man you wanted to be. Then came the 60’s and 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, and success became contingent on skills like salesmanship and interpersonal skills. Character has since lost it’s value in the eyes of society and the men and women who inhabit it, but it hasn’t lost it’s value in our lives, our development, and our quest for happiness and purpose.

Character, however, isn’t developed in ease. Anyone can be nice and good when everything is nice and good. It’s when the shit hits the fan that our true character is revealed.